I recently ran across a reference to Kodriaff waves. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to write down the spelling, so the above is only an approximation. The idea was that there are repeated examples of history of technology revolutionizing certain histories in a fifty year period. Some examples I remember off hand were textiles, steam engines, and steel production. The point was that these industries were stuck at a fairly flat development rate, suddenly seemed to expand at phenomenal rates, but then settle back to a plateau (albeit a much higher one).
Anyone able to give me the correct name for the idea and point me to any places where I can find more information?